Prairie Miller

Tomatometer-approved critic

Biography:

Prairie graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University and is the mother of twin sons. She is a multimedia journalist online, and in print and radio. She has written articles and poems here and internationally, and aspires always to the excavation of the lyrical muse in journalism and the poetry in history. Prairie also has two published poetry collections, including Arguments With America (Pemmican Press), and Legends (John Brown Press).

Sorry, we missed the point. Or in other words, a director of Loach's stature in need of a new screenwriter for some time. With unfortunately coincidental insight into a country that demonized Jeremy Corbyn, and got anti-workingclass Boris instead. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

The boldly irreverent anti-patriarchal parable critiques a me-too menu of atrocities. Including mass superstition, vigilante justice, the persecution of women as witches, and a righteous uprising of designated ancient heretics, rebels and outcasts.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A uniquely penetrating if over the top and grotesque endeavor. In other words, a savagely unrelenting excursion into male talk when women aren't around and even when they are, a self-critiquing uninhibited outpouring of venomous male bonding as well. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Best musical of the year. Julianne Moore in a take no prisoners transformative rebel middle age makeover. And with lots of self-celebratory, breathlessly expressive emancipation in this somewhat feminist musical too.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Three Christs - Or possibly four. Gere is commended for his principled choices on and off screen, including helping stranded immigrants off the Italian coast. But missing here about US mental health cruelty is better grasped now in another movie - Joker.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Who is Russian oligarch Khodorkovsky, and what is he doing as a dubious hero in this film. While celebrated here promoting his human rights outfit, Open Russia - created and funded by war criminal Kissinger and UK robber baron banker Jacob Rothschild. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

"Don't become an asshole, a little power can turn a person into a monster." In this truth stranger than Hollywood biopic, Eastwood in a bid as unlikely as his designated hero has crafted an emerging police state/corporate press collusion cautionary tale.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Are You Ready To Be Different: Part ghost tale, part Bartleby while at the same time a captivating slavery reparations fable, the film flirts with the supernatural even with its heart planted firmly in sobering class and race issues historically and now.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

With class, race and cultural divides up for satirical scrutiny, the entire explosive socio-political era that fed blaxploitation gets raw enlightenment. And with the ignited rebel instinct, lucid moment of the marginalized defining that subversive time.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Unfortunately apt title for this essentially generic biopic plodding along with a tearjerker tabloid cinema soul, Judy could have been about any aspiring female entertainer's disappointed downfall. So the question presents itself throughout - Which Judy? &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Yet another instance of filmmakers of courage and conviction stepping up where unfortunately and unlike Gun, politicians and the press (including critics) fear to tread. Which is the reason you likely never heard of this best female action hero this year.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

The take no prisoners daring director's perspective focuses yes on disturbing, but more as mirror reflecting back with ugly historical truths. Think terrifying trajectory as grotesque human canvas extending from Bosch and Bruegel to late stage capitalism.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

The Operative is essential filmmaking of conviction indeed. A brave movie stepping in to confront the challenges of current political censure and censorship offscreen - where timid and cowardly or complicit governments and corporate media fear to tread.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

'We're not homeless, we're just lost.' An unfortunate irony in an otherwise harrowing drama about homelessness. As this not uncommon timid film evades with a blame the victim, emotional cluelessness. Rather than protest against an intolerable system.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A vivid, near soliloquoy, men distorting women and bypassing the soul. And relief for suppressed passions and frustrations do eventually break free for moments, but with only elusive windows of dramatic conjecture provided - as perhaps it should be.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A metaphorical, muted lyrical elegy of unrelieved despair in the Kafkaesque catacombs of global capitalism, somewhere in the former GDR following German reunification - and the concurrent disappearance of a collective trucker brotherhood under socialism.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A kaleidoscope of vibrant generational influences on protest music and spoken word poetry across the decades. Connecting the '30s, the Beats and '60s culture with the contrasting political and creative struggles younger artists face today.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

The film elicits both sadness and outrage, framed within the simultaneous, progressively resigned and rebellious inner life of the young protagonist. And that happens to be related personally to the director herself, when gazing in the mirror.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Requiem for a country. Or rather, what doesn't kill you makes you..Disappear. An ironic Serb-French co-production between NATO/victim country - which might update and expand the Winston Churchill axiom: History is written by the victor's filmmakers.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

What ensues during this deepening, darkly laced diabolical torture spree is basically wildly wicked women at their worst, a maniacal generation gap standoff with the young terrorized females, and something best left to those warped imaginations out there.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

For the birds? Or something more. In other words, the mass helpless perception through those very senses. Counting deep state digital surveillance, and the powerlessness of all of us against these doomsday scenarios for real - protective blindfold or not.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A showcase for three eminent actresses that includes Jacqueline Bisset and Renee Zellweger as well. And the delicately layered ways in which women bond and unbond, however awkward or misread, when men aren't around.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Though 55 Steps, well, side-steps the alarming political issues, with the doctors in question as cover for the true medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex villains, at its core this film transcends class as a remarkable female bonding story.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Veteran time traveler on screen Christopher Lloyd - Back To The Future and many more - is at it once again in ReRun. Never disappointing and in this case lending new meaning to the notion of 'in the closet' - though with more metaphysical implications. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Or rather, The Queen Of Comedy. And De Niro's brutal portrayal taken to another level, laced with macabre when not pornographic shock jokes, updated and feminized for the 21st century. And a ferociously raw comic noir minefield that provocatively stings.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Proceed with caution in this disclaimer-free Dem infomercial in doc sheep's clothing. And one-side-to-every-story carnival barker spree - the best line from a smirking talking head asked for proof: Everything I know that's interesting, I can't tell you. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Or rather a tale of two cons. A doc that could have benefited from both a less worshipful title and portrayal, and likewise compromised by a facade of pandering even handedness dubiously tossing together Elvis with the equally fraudulent American Dream.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A provocative new take on the enduring, mythic power of Shelley's Frankenstein. In other words instead of a cautionary prophesy about science, that she foretold how women no less than the monster that may be herself - have been abused throughout history.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Move over, Dark Web. In this both illuminating and creepy doc-noir, lurks a stressed, exploited army of outsourced cyber-police tasked with expunging whatever corporations counting Google, deem mandatory. Cell phone activists as well - you get the idea. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

American raises far more provocative issues than can be addressed. But perhaps that's the point - to stimulate curiosity, speculation and intense conversation - as to what exactly is the definition of American, in these troubling and turbulent times.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Don't believe the hype. A far more intriguing, follow the money power struggle off screen instead, pitting corporate interests against the mass popular discontent of the downwardly mobile US population in progress. In other words, who funded your movie.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Ideologically dismissive and strictly from the school of scratching the surface cinema, not to mention the enigmatic participation of no less than 27 production companies likely rubber stamping their own two cents all over this politically evasive project&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Or perhaps alternately titled, Dislike Me. A psycho-socially driven horror movie about millennials gone mad, taken over by a gadget generation cyberspace psychosis. And at a time right now when idea driven horror like Get Out, may be making a comeback .&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A documentary about the first black man to sleep in the White House - no, not Obama - but rather Sammy Davis Jr. A simultaneous chronicle of a turbulent era, and memory lane excursion through the complex and complicated life of the entertainment legend.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Sterling Jerins impresses as an eleven year old with a dark and capricious but fascinating imagination. And Shields subtly and gracefully goes inside herself to burrow into the complicated emotional life of this woman.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

'In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight way had been lost.' Denzel's 21st century Dante captivates as perhaps not coincidentally 'Roman' J. Israel Esq., in a film seemingly long been waiting to be made. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Diane Kruger goes full Antifa. An intriguing metaphorical narrative premise - and what ultimately ensues is not just a stunningly executed thriller, but a brilliant political parable in reverse for our time. You go, Diane.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Kaurismaki's offbeat imagination and subversive charm remain in evidence here. But that irreverent stylistic mix with serious and heart wrenching issues surrounding the current refugee crisis in Europe, lends a perplexing, missed opportunity to this film.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A powerful blueprint for saving public libraries from predatory urban removal developers, intent on demolishing and grabbing the land right under them - and in effect community centers for the masses by default, in a society lacking them under capitalism.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

This bittersweet political satire uncovers the shameful collusion of Hollywood with Franco back then - the roots of fascism in this country today. And Penelope as a new kind of anti-fascist female action hero - move over Wonder Woman and Atomic Blonde.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

A scary world filled with everyday, distinctly frightening stuff for women in the real world yet to be mined as fuel for horror in movies - who knew. And kicking in a new and different kaleidoscope of bizarre, amusing and unconventional at the same time.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Though I'm more of an old school pen and paper person myself, there's no point resisting Richard Polt's movement ode to just how The Revolution Will Be Typewritten. Or for that matter, the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. And, the last film of Sam Shepard. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Minus the less would have been more family illness plot point distraction, the film evokes an admirable confrontation of art vs capitalism and what should matter most, whether in US society or the actors of conviction opting for small projects like these.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

Thornton's extraordinary performance conjures such powerful emotional horror and desperation, that audiences have little choice but to be carried along with her into the dramatic vortex of her unrelenting plight. &dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT

The film covers already well trodden ground. Nevertheless, introducing these detailed revelations to younger generations not privy to those discussions and debates over the years as older audiences have been, is a worthy and enlightening endeavor.&dash; WBAI Radio - EDIT